Yes, indeed, a difficult decision – but in having made it I feel I have at least found something of myself again. I fear I had not been my usual self in some time.

And I must admit it is hard to relinquish one’s usual role of being the healer rather than the patient – it is difficult enough to disengage, to not have an armful of cases and poisonings to be looking at. I am sure I have heard once of your beach apple, though have never actually seen a case of it in my time (and do not think on how many years that might have been!) at the hospital. So I am sure it took some clever thinking on your part.

I am enjoying reading this volume – and for all these exotic plants and innumerable poisons and toxicities in the world, I suppose I cannot also help but imagine how many foreign and perhaps undiscovered plants there might be in the far reaches of the world that might have the opposite properties, which could be used in remedies for conditions for which we do not yet have cures. It almost makes me sorry that I have never travelled so far and that there is so much we do not yet know!

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